Brooklyn Museum director Anne Pasternak sparked a critical conversation at the Making Their Mark Forum in Washington, D.C., highlighting a gendered disparity in museum leadership exits. Pasternak observed that while male directors are typically permitted to retire with dignity, female leaders are increasingly being fired or forced out, calling on the press to investigate the lack of formal data on this trend.
The discussion comes amid a series of high-profile departures of women from major institutions, including Sasha Suda at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Kim Sajet at the National Portrait Gallery, and Laurence des Cars at the Louvre. These leadership shifts, often involving the replacement of women with men, underscore ongoing systemic inequities and the precarious nature of institutional authority for women in the arts.